Transforming Japan

How Feminism and Diversity are Making a Difference

Edited by Kumiko Fujimura-Fanselow

Publication Year: 2011

Gender roles are changing dramatically in modern Japan. LGBT people are coming out of the closet; single mothers are an expanding population; ethnic minorities are mobilizing for change; women are becoming political leaders and even professional wrestlers. And some Japanese men are taking on the role of househusband. This is a comprehensive collection of essays from Japanese scholars and activists exploring gender, sexuality, race, discrimination, power, and human rights.

Cover

Title Page

Copyright Page

Dedication

Table of Contents

Preface

Almost twenty years ago, I approached
Florence Howe, the director of the Feminist Press, with the idea of producing
an anthology written by Japanese scholars about Japanese women’s lives.
The volume took five years to complete. Japanese Women: New Feminist
Perspectives on the Past, Present, and Future (1995), which I co-edited with
Atsuko Kameda, served a worldwide audience interested in the views of...

Introduction

The early 1990s were often described as
onna no jidai or “the era of women.” The implication was that women in
Japan had not only attained a large measure of equality in a highly affluent
society and could exercise freedom in choosing from a variety of options in
their pursuit of a fulfilling life, but also that as a result they enjoyed happier,
fuller, and more balanced lives than their male counterparts who were tied...

I. Cultural and Historical Perspectives

1. The Struggle for Legal Rights and Reforms: A Historical View

Japanese women had few individual or
political rights before World War II. Under the prevailing ie, or family, system,
which was the foundation of prewar Japanese society, the proper place
for women was considered to be within the home, under the authority of the
male family head. Any type of involvement by women in political activities
was thought to be contradictory to natural physiological and psychological...

2. Women in Japanese Buddhism

In Japan today, there are still certain
designated places that by tradition are barred to women. For example,
women are not permitted to climb certain so-called reizan (holy mountains)
such as Omine Mountain in Nara. Similarly, there is a taboo against
women setting foot at the site of a tunnel under construction based on the
superstition that, if she does so, the mountain goddess will become angry or...

3. Who's Afriad of Kiku Amino? Gender Conflict and the Literary Canon

Kiku Amino (1900-1978) seems to have
disappeared from the scene of Japanese literature today. A writer born in
turn-of-the century Japan, she was a contemporary of Yuriko Miyamoto
(1899-1951), and, like other women writers of her day, wrote semi-autobiographical
fiction (“I-fiction,” or shishosetsu). During her long and prolific
writing career, which spanned nearly sixty years, Amino received wide...

4. Unions and Disunions: Three Early Twentieth-Century Females Couples

The period between 1910 and the early
1930s was a comparatively peaceful one of economic stability following
Japan’s victory in World War I. During this time of the Taisho democracy,
cities were filled with so-called mobo (modern boys), and moga (modern
girls), young adults who had adopted Western dress and behavior. Fancy
operas and musicals were popular, as well as the new Takarazuka Girls’ Theater...

II. Education

5. Educational Challenges Past and Present

“Education frees the human spirit.”
How often have I, Kimi Hara, been struck by and reminded of the significance
of this inscription inside the entrance of Judd Hall at the University
of Chicago. Education, in the true sense of the term, helps develop human
potential, emancipating us from all bindings and restrictions. Education
regenerates one’s heart and mind and thereby influences the social and cultural...

6. The Advancement of Women in Science and Technology

In 2006, female high school students—
called “Rocket Girls”—earned headlines in Japanese newspapers reporting
that during the summer break the Akita University Innovation Center for
Engineering Design and Manufacturing created a project designed to slow
the loss of female students from science fields. Thirteen young women from
Akita Prefecture and Tokyo participated. One student said, “The joy you...

III. Marriage and Families

7. The Changing Patterns of Marriage and Motherhood

Recent policy discussions surrounding
changes in marriage and family in contemporary Japan evoke a sense of
crisis. Japan’s fertility rate, with an average of 1.37 children per woman in
2008 (Koseirodosho 2008), is well below the replacement rate, raising fears
of a gradual decline in Japan’s population. In addition, Japanese women
are increasingly delaying marriage and a growing number are remaining...

8. Single Mothers

As an unmarried mother, I have been
actively involved in a single mothers’ group since the 1980s. Initially called
No Cutbacks on Dependent Children’s Allowance Networking Group (Jido
fuyo teate no kirisute o yurusanai renrakukai), we organized to maintain the
Dependent Children’s Allowance that sustains single mothers. In the 1990s
as our goals broadened, we renamed our group the Single Mother’s Forum...

9. The Formation and Growth of the Men's Movement

In 1991, the so-called “men’s lib” movement
in Japan made its formal debut, when I and four other men living in
Osaka and its surrounding area, called Kansai, organized what we called the
“Men’s Lib Research Group (Tentative Title).” As the last part of our group’s
name suggests, we were at first completely unsure about how to make our
claim. Of course, our work was preceded by earlier examples of men working...

10. My Life as a Househusband

I first decided to seek child care hours
because I had made an agreement with my pharmacist wife, that, once we
married, we would both work outside our home—whether full time or part
time—while also dividing responsibilities for housework and child care.
When our son was born in July 1992, I was working at a small chemical
firm with about forty employees. This was the same year that the Child Care...

IV. Changing Sexualities

11. Defining Lesbian Partnerships

To fully appreciate how lesbians in Japan
define and live their lives as couples, it is important to understand the current
social and legal environment in which lesbians find themselves. Public
opinion surveys show that more people express negative attitudes than neutral
or positive ones when explicitly asked about same-sex sexual relationships.
As in other countries, more men hold negative attitudes toward such...

12. Increasing Lesbian Visibility

So-called rezu baa (lez bars) were present
in Tokyo as early as the 1960s. When a show by a reputable theater
company portrayed rezu-style motifs that featured women dressed in men’s
clothing, it was supported by twenty-three lesbian bars in Tokyo (Shiba
1993). If one considers that Tokyo’s famous gay district of Shinjuku nichome
has only ten rediisu baa today (lesbian bars, known also as ladies’...

13. Dialogue: Three Activists on Gender and Sexuality

Moderator: We would like to begin this panel discussion by asking each
of you to introduce yourself, and tell us about your community involvement,
starting with Chizuka Oe.
Oe: I am the main representative of Lesbians of Undeniable Desire (LOUD),
a center for lesbian and bisexual women since 1999. As an activist, I have
lectured at a number of universities throughout Japan, and I have also...

V. Activism for the Rights of Minorities

14. The Story of Kalakasan and Migrant Filipinas

In 2007, roughly 2.15 million foreigners
—or about 1.7 percent of the country’s total population, coming from
190 different countries—lived in Japan. Not surprisingly, over nearly four
decades, marriages per annum between Japanese and foreign nationals
have steadily increased from around 5,500 in 1970 to more than 40,000 in
2007. In 2007, such bicultural marriages accounted for 5.6 percent of all...

15. Revisiting the "Comfort Women": Moving Beyond Nationalism

Between 1931 and 1945, women from
Japan, Korea, and China, as well as from other areas under Japanese occupation,
were forced into sexual servitude at “comfort stations,” set up for
the sexual release of Japanese soldiers. Ironically, the women were called
“comfort women.”The cruelty with which the women were treated was not
mentioned at postwar trials, and the issue was hushed up, and did not surface...

16. Buraku Solidarity

The word “Buraku,” which literally
means “hamlet,” refers to the people from particular communities in Japan,
as well as the communities themselves. Their history goes back to seventeenth-
century Japan, when several legally determined social castes were
designated senmin, or “humble people,” and charged to do specific jobs considered
“impure,” such as processing dead cattle and leatherwork. They were...

17. Ainu, Buraku, and Zainichi Korean Activists Rise Up

“We exist.” This is what one Zainichi
Korean1 woman asserted in a nongovernmental organization report to the
Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women, which
oversees the United Nations Convention on the Elimination of All Forms
of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW).2 She was also directing her
words toward the Japanese government, and Japanese society in general...

VI. Doors to Employment Open and Close

18. Employment and Poverty

In 1985, the Japanese government ratified
the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination
against Women (CEDAW) and introduced legislation to abolish discrimination
against women in all fields. The Equal Employment Opportunity
Law (EEOL), passed in the area of labor the same year, marked a significant
turning point for the Japanese employment system. Since its enactment...

19. Japanese Women Professional Wrestlers and Body Image

Since the 1990s, scholars interested in
gender have been attending to issues of the body. Martha McCaughey, for
example, argues that gender is not only a matter of the mind but of “embodied
social values” (1997, 7). Similarly, Moira Gatens (1996) holds that people
construct and confirm their masculinity and femininity not only in their
minds, but also through their physical activities and through experiences...

20. Migrants and the Sex Industry

From the mid-1980s to the mid-1990s
trans-border trade in the sex industry emerged as a social issue, and at
the same time globalization, the feminization of labor, and migration also
expanded. Yayori Matsui described the problem succinctly in 1995:
Many of the women who come to Japan as migrant workers are not in
the position of being able to raise their own travel expenses to Japan

21. The Nonprofit Sector

The nonprofit sector in Japan has
expanded in recent years, as has the importance of people working in nonprofit
organizations. A major force behind this expansion was the 1995
Great Hanshin-Awaji (Kobe) earthquake in which over six thousand people
lost their lives. Following the earthquake, more than a million people from
across the country converged on the city of Kobe to work in relief projects...

VII. Feminism and Political Power

22. Japan's First Phase of Feminism

In 1868 the new Meiji government was
established in Japan, replacing the Tokugawa shogunate, whose rule had
lasted for two hundred and sixty years. A new Japan, with the emperor
as head of state, abolished feudalism,1 introduced a capitalist system, and
pursued a path toward modernization, following the models of Western
countries. Japan’s start as a capitalist country lagged behind the Western...

23. Backlash Against Gender Equality After 2000

In Backlash: The Undeclared War Against
American Women, Susan Faludi warned feminists that the antifeminist
movement headed by leaders of the New Right began as early as the late
1980s. Paul Weyrich, co-founder of the conservative US group The Heritage
Foundation, for example, described the feminist threat in the journal Conservative
Digest: “[T] here are people who want a different political order...

24. The Politicization of Housewives

Women did not gain the right to vote in
Japan until just after the country’s 1945 defeat in World War II. As a result,
women’s suffrage in Japan is often remarked to be a “gift from MacArthur,”
a reference to the American General Douglas MacArthur, who oversaw the
Occupation of Japan by the Allied Powers following the end of World War
II, and under whose supervision the liberation of women was pursued as...

25. Profiles of Two Politicians

In 2007, the elections in the Upper House of Japan’s National Diet, or legislature
(House of Councillors), resulted in serious losses for the ruling
Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), accompanied by impressive gains for the
Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ). Thus, the election shifted the balance
of power significantly, since actions taken by the LDP-dominated Lower
House (House of Representatives) could be voted down in the Upper...

Welcome to Project MUSE

Use the simple Search box at the top of the page or the Advanced Search linked from the top of the page to find book and journal content. Refine results with the filtering options on the left side of the Advanced Search page or on your search results page. Click the Browse box to see a selection of books and journals by: Research Area, Titles A-Z, Publisher, Books only, or Journals only.